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Quick HitAaron KragerThursday December 15th, 2011, 10:52am

Disgruntled Parents Take Over Board Of Education Meeting (VIDEO)

The contentious debate between teachers, their supporters and
the Chicago Board of Education continued this week with protesters
erupting in a mic check during the board’s monthly public meeting,
forcing board members to approve a motion to go into a closed session.

As soon as CPS chief executive Jean-Claude Brizard opened his
mouth to begin his report, activist and father of five boys Adourthus
McDowell’s booming voice denounced the board in a passionate diatribe.
The same mic check, a process of echoing the words of the first speaker,
followed McDowell’s, leading security to escort at least eight
protesters out of the meeting and forcing the board members to leave
chambers.

The mic check combined a
flurry of heated rhetoric calling for the firing of Brizard and Mayor
Rahm Emanuel, as well as citing studies from prominent schools. Research
from the University of Chicago and Stanford University state that the
turnaround policy has not led to academic gains and protesters also
questioned the current performance rating of schools that have already
been through a turnaround. The controversial process fires existing
staff and imposes new curriculum in the schools. According to an analysis by
Catalyst Chicago, roughly two-fifths of the turnaround schools received
CPS’s lowest rating of Performance Level 3, meaning they fit the
criteria to be closed. Just one-fifth of the schools took home CPS’s
high-performing rating.

“You have failed…You have produced chaos…You should be fired,” chanted protesters.

Teachers
and supporters held a vigil outside of the Board of Education building
the night before the meeting and roughly 40 stayed overnight outside in
the rain to ensure their seating in the meeting. The board is poised to
close or restructure 21 schools of which 10 will be turned around.
Protesters call the turnaround process a union busting technique. Six of
these schools will be managed by the Academy for Urban School
Leadership (AUSL), increasing the non-profit’s management totals to 18.

Here's a look at the vigil:

Progress Illinois noted in
an original report yesterday the cozy relationship between CPS and
AUSL. The non-profit currently only contracts with CPS and the new
chairman of the board, David Vitale, used to chair AUSL. Tim Cawley,
current chief operating officer for CPS, also worked on the finances of
AUSL.

During the more than two-hour delay in the meeting, CTU
Vice President Jesse Sharkey lead the audience in the public
participation portion of the meeting. Frustrated parents and community
activists took turns speaking to the empty chairs of the board.

“These
attacks [on unions] can only continue and intensify,” said Erek Slater,
a CTA bus driver who camped out all night. “People who do the real work
are not the problem. We are the solution.”

Parents from the proposed turnaround schools spoke of success in their schools.

“As
a parent I am sick and tired of the attacks on teachers,” said Erica
Clark, a parent of a CPS student. “When you attack our teachers, you
attack our kids. When you say our schools are toxic and their is no
learning going on, you are attacking our children. When you devalue and
disrespect our teachers, you are devaluing and disrespecting our kids.”

“With
limited resources [Pablo] Casals already outperforms citywide schools
as well as six of 11 AUSL schools,” said Sharon Herod-Purham, a teacher
at the elementary school slated to be turned around. Herod-Purham spoke
of data showing her school’s improvement running higher than some of the
AUSL schools and claimed turnaround would not help the children. “In
fact AUSL schools need a lifeline themselves. Yet, AUSL will receive
millions of dollars from CPS to turn Casals around. But Casals has 300
applications for after school programs, yet receives just 47 seats.
That’s only 16 percent of the applicants. I wonder what Casals could do
at its present capacity with a quarter of the money allocated for that
AUSL program.”

The Chicago Vocational Career Academy, at 2100 E
87th St., and Tilden Career Community Academy, 4747 S Union Ave., high
schools also are targeted for turnaround.

After the meeting, CPS spokesperson Becky Carroll release the following statement:

We
have a deep respect for those who choose to exercise their right to
free speech, but we make no excuses for taking action on some of the
worst performing schools in the district. We can no longer accept a
status quo that has allowed so many schools to fail our students year
after year, where only 7.9% of all 11th graders test college ready and
more than 120,000 attend low performing schools. We will take whatever
steps are available to ensure our students can access higher quality
school options in their community immediately – that includes creating
new turnaround schools, which have proven track records on boosting
student achievement in the district’s lowest performing schools, and, in
very few cases, close schools where we can safely send students to
neighboring schools that are higher performing. We must make necessary
but difficult choices if we are to do the right thing for our students
and get them on a path for college and career readiness.

Carroll’s
assertion of taking action on the worst performing schools seems to
contradict the data presented by Herod-Purham as well as the studies
suggesting the turnaround program does not work as advertised.

Board
members conducted business as usual when they returned from their
closed session near 1:30 p.m., opening up public participation with a
much smaller audience. A group of parents and teachers from the
Belmont-Craigin neighborhood spoke against the proposed Christopher
House Charter School, set to be built on the same campus as the public
Northwest Middle School.

“We lost six teachers this year and now
you are giving money to build a charter school 16 inches from our
school,” said Julion Clinton, a Northwest Middle School parent. He also
noted the 700 signatures from community members opposing the charter
school.

The community opposition proved to be insufficient as the
board unanimously approved not only the Christopher House Charter
School, but four new high schools from Noble Street, three elementary
schools by LEARN, and another three elementary schools from the United
Neighborhood Organization. All the while, board members praised the work
of charter school promoters such as Lori Vaas, CEO of Christopher
House, while merely thanking opposing voices for their words.

Voting
on the turnarounds is not scheduled until February, leaving time for
opponents to try to convince a board that appears already set to move
forward.